Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Laura St Jude - New Waves

This Scottish singer songwriter’s emotional torch songs sound like the soundtrack to a gothic Wild West movie, and they’re utterly immersive. Welcome to the world of Laura St Jude.

This relatively new chanteuse from Glasgow, provides an interesting alternative to the vast majority of breathy ethereal singer songwriters that hit our earwaves these days. For Laura’s voice is sad and spectral, her twangy songs like a modern day version of Nancy Sinatra singing Bang Bang; and that is a very good thing.

Having already released her debut Fatal EP, Laura uploaded three new songs to Soundcloud on Sunday and it’s these tracks that grabbed our attention. There’s the haunting Mother, the seductively rich Devil’s Daughter (which streams below) as well as Town, which takes lyrical reference to Sparks as Laura sings “this old town just ain’t big enough for the two of us.” They’re all gorgeously melancholic and incredibly powerful without the need for Laura to express herself as one of those ‘big voiced’ singers like Adele or Florence. Laura’s songs create a subtle and majestic atmosphere; they have a shadowy flickering beauty that we could imagine being played in a dark candlelit chapel.

Laura St Jude will be playing the Great Escape Festival in Brighton on Thursday the 16th of May as part of a Showcasing Scotland show at the Dome Studio at 13.30 and on The Metro Hub Stage at the Festival Hub at 12.00 on Friday 17th. If you’re going, why not take yourself along and be prepared to be cast under her spell?